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It was the Fourth of July. In the Denver airport, waiting to board my plane
to Cincinnati, I became strangely alarmed when an out-of-control six-year-old
boy, standing on a nearby seat and kicking the back of it as hard as he
could, caught me glaring at him through my dark glasses. "Please don't
seat this boy close to me," I silently prayed. A particularly vicious double
kick to the seat back was his reponse as he gazed directly into my concealed
eyes. "I may be in trouble," I thought. When my section was called, there
was further confirmation, for he and his very permissive mother were boarding
right behind me. As 29F was my seat, there was still hope. The tail section
was rows 20 to 30. I settled into my seat. A small, pointed, pink tongue
followed by a demonic face was his special sign to me as he dragged his
mother to the row behind me. Of course, she gave him the window seat.
His feet pushed up against the back of my seat. Secretly and gently, he increased and decreased the pressure, testing me. I felt the slow, burning rage building within me. Not surprisingly, the first demonic image began to appear in my mind. I imagined that I would stand and turn, lean over the back of my seat, take off my dark glasses, and stare menancingly into his eyes. Just as I was savoring this inner experience, the situation suddenly worsened. He gave a powerful stomp against the back of my seat. His mother's words were pathetically ineffective. "Be a nice boy," she said cheerily. I unbuckled the seat belt, stood, turned, and delivered my best darkside glare, then sat down. But I was shaken, for while our eyes were locked, his complexion darkened. There was no question that not only was he not a nice boy but, as I now suspected, he might also be possesssed by energies of the underworld. Not thirty seconds passed before three very strong stomps declared his independence and authority.
My counterattack took a leap in intensity. I would now show the mother the art and benefits of threatened corporal punishment. But before I could undo my seat belt he preempted me with four stomps in the rhythm of Morse code "V", the same rhythm used by Beethoven in his Fifth Symphony and played over the radio to the European Resistance during WWII to secretly inspire Victory in the face of overwhelming odds. I was now at the limits of my control. My usual images of eating small children-very effective with adults who are seized by their interior children in my Conference work-only caused him now to enter a repetitive stomping of Beethoven's masterwork theme. Somehow the boy and I were linked, and I was the source of the escalating disturbance.
Sinking into powerlessness, I managed to move my hands to my Heart Center. I began to feel the calm in the midst of chaos. How do I bring Unconditional Love to this situation, I asked myself. "Surrender completely" came back the silent answer, accompanied by a disconcerting sense that its source might be the little boy. Yes I thought. That is exactly how to greet the shadow. Welcome it as a friend and teacher. I surrendered completely and prepared to appreciate the stomping as a massage...when it suddenly and dramatically quit. I was astonishingly undisturbed for the rest of the trip.
As I stood to leave my seat at the end of the flight, he caught my eye and smiled. We both smiled when, on entering the area where others were waiting to board our plane, we saw another little boy jumping up and down, kicking seats. I quickly scanned the crowd, trying to spot the person who was the unconscious orchestrator. There he was, wearing dark glasses, already glaring at his unrecognized teacher.
A Radiance of Love,
